London's Best Kept Secret

by Anabelle Bryant

  Rolling to her back she stared at the white lace canopy, an overflow of tears quick to run paths down her cheeks. Perhaps things weren’t as terrible as she believed. It still remained possible her sister wasn’t pregnant. That Lord Gordon would behave honorably. Certainly, her family would never reject Louisa’s child.

  And Dearing . . . Their argument was an excuse for larger issues. Unknown emotions and diffident conflicts. Was her quick anger just another defense to protect herself from further heartache and rejection? She couldn’t hold him accountable overlong or he’d ask questions she couldn’t answer. She’d promised no secrets, but Louisa’s condition and its many complications weren’t her problem to share, the matter too private.

  Charlotte would never believe Dearing purposely sought to cause Louisa anguish or acted in a mean-spirited manner. More likely he spoke with honesty when he’d apologized and had become too possessed with their intimacy. In that light, she should feel inordinately flattered his desire had wiped all thought from his brain.

  A feeble smile replaced her sadness. She exhaled, long and thoroughly, finished with tears. She needed to apologize, to make things right and seek his advice because she did not want to skulk around Mayfair seeking the rogue who took advantage of her sister. In this, she needed her husband’s assistance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Enough.

  Dearing had had enough.

  He took the stairs two at a time, his footsteps hard on the treads. Once upstairs, he flung open the door to his bedchambers, barely aware of the cat who shadowed his heels. He paced before the adjoining door to Charlotte’s rooms. Twice, thrice and then not at all.

  Hell.

  Bloody hell.

  He twisted the knob to enter her bedchambers without so much as a knock and booted the door closed behind him. Charlotte startled. The counterpane had been pulled back to reveal crisp white sheets where she’d reclined on the bed before he’d entered. But she shot straight up now, her face a mixture of tearstains and revelation.

  A portrait of loveliness.

  He wouldn’t allow her beauty to detract from his purpose. Enough of this ridiculous argument and pretense, their cat-and-mouse game beyond frustrating. He’d had his fill. Time to finish what he’d begun two nights before.

  “Jeremy.”

  His name on her lips was a gift. He’d half-expected her to rail at him for invading her bedchambers unannounced. Hope, a useless emotion, stirred with vigor, and he nudged it down. Life had a peculiar way of turning one into a liar, truth more destructive than falsehood.

  “Charlotte.” He swallowed hard and stepped to the edge of the mattress. “I dislike this silence between us.” Her wide eyes searched his face. What did she wish to see? “I’m sorry I behaved thoughtlessly concerning your sister’s visit.” There. He couldn’t state it more plainly. Words came much easier now.

  “I know.” The corner of her mouth twitched and inched upward the slightest.

  “Please extend my apologies to Louisa.” He breathed in relief. “I take it everything is resolved?”

  “She needed to speak to me, just as you needed to right now.”

  And then she shifted on the bed, coming up on her knees so she was nearly matched, her petite height not aided enough by the mattress. But surely it was an invitation.

  He leaned in, closing the distance between their mouths, his longing on such a tight leash, he feared his heart would give out before he finally tasted his wife and savored her beauty in every aspect.

  Words were replaced by actions. His fingers worked buttons and ties without coherent thought, her touch both tentative and bold as she too sought to remove the barriers between them. At last, they existed as one mind and body.

  Mostly body on his part. At least at this moment.

  In less time that it had taken for him to screw up his courage and enter his wife’s rooms, they were undressed to their intimates. His heart thundered in his chest. Her gauzy chemise did little to conceal her full breasts, the satiny skin pinkened from their haste or, with any luck, anticipation. His cock twitched hard and anxious in his smalls. This immediate lust for his wife remained a reflex he hadn’t mastered, yet he wouldn’t fall upon her like some sex-starved scoundrel.

  No matter he yearned to do exactly that.

  Repeatedly.

  Pined, dreamed, hungered . . .

  He watched, mesmerized, as she raised her arms to release her glorious hair. The action brought her breasts to the neckline, the points of her nipples traced in dusky display through the thin fabric. He drummed a concerto against his bare thigh and searched for patience. His wife was delectable. Did she have any idea how sorely he wanted her?

  Her hair fell and so did he, deeper into the abyss he recognized as love but hadn’t given a voice. Silence consumed the room instead. This was a long-sought and delicious game, and he would savor it.

  Then onto the bed, where he caged her beneath him, his arms supporting his weight, his mouth level with hers. He shifted slightly, and the bedframe creaked with such force, the vase of pale blooms on the nightstand jiggled in protest. He wasted but a flick of his eyes on the distraction. His wife was a romantic. He liked that about her. He liked so many things about her.

  Most especially the way she felt beneath him.

  He sank lower and captured her lush lips in a kiss. Her response was all he could hope for, and their tongues met on a slide of consent. He deepened their embrace and rolled to the side, taking her with him, her surprise expressed in an abrupt gasp that offered him a more luscious taste of her mouth. Each stroke of her tongue reverberated in his groin, yet he held back. He’d waited too long to rush the moment.

  Side by side, his fingers gathered the hem of her chemise and raised it in an effortless sweep to reveal smooth, precious skin. Collected in his fist, he removed the garment and cast it aside to the bedlinens. At last, Charlotte in her lacy silk pantalets, was bared to him in pure honesty.

  Without warning, a troublesome thought intruded. He should tell her everything. Confess it all before they made love. A piercing ache persisted right below his breastbone, and he held his breath, hoping to shut it away. If only he could cleave the truth and discover the correct words to expose what he’d done. But he knew what naked candor would cost, how his heart would be destroyed. Undoubtedly, she would leave. Yet didn’t he owe her that choice?

  He pulled free of their kiss, and her eyes fluttered open. And so he watched her, rapt and breathless, though the words wouldn’t leave his tongue.

  * * *

  Charlotte stared into Jeremy’s lovely brown eyes and envisioned her future. Her husband was straitlaced, duty-bound and terribly traditional, but this epitome of a gentleman beside her was also a hot-blooded, passionate lover, evidenced by the hard, hot erection pressed against her bare thigh. She laced her fingers through his hair and pushed a too-long lock away from his brow. His throat flexed, as if he wished to speak but had thought better of it and kept the words inside.

  She’d come to accept his shyness as endearing, if nothing else. If only she could read his mind. Still, she wasn’t foolish and would not concentrate on logical thought when at last she was to become one with her husband. She would give him her body. He already consumed her heart. Perhaps, in this act, he would trust her with his, open himself to what their marriage could be. For now, it was little more than words on paper. A trap of secrets, hurtful omissions and polite regard.

  He eased over her, deliberately, as if he aimed to make no mistakes, as if any could be made, this broad-muscled man atop her in bed. Her skin seemed deliriously sensitive and she once again closed her eyes and summoned acute awareness. Her senses awakened to magnify their intimacy. She inhaled, having come to know his scent and covet the masculine spice of shaving soap on his skin.

  She’d never lain with a man, but she’d envisioned this moment more times than she could count. Now the cool linen met her back while the heated shelter of her husband’s body nestled against her i
n a glory of sensation and texture. The hair on his chest teased her nipples, alert and tender.

  She fluttered her fingertips with featherlight pressure over his shoulder, across his chiseled collarbone and muscular chest, to learn every smooth curve and hard indentation. His muscles jerked beneath her exploration, but she held her eyes closed, lost to feeling, unwilling to relinquish the divine and sensuous pressure of her husband’s weight against her body. She settled her palm over his heart and counted the rhythm as succinctly as a metronome marked the notes of her music. She memorized the melody and made it her own.

  His hand skimmed her ribs and settled on her waist to grip her hip gently.

  “You feel—” He murmured, low and husky in her ear, and a fresh shiver of excitement dotted her skin, regardless he didn’t finish the sentence.

  Any lingering apprehension unraveled and reformed into intense longing.

  He made a soft, pleasured sound deep in his throat, somehow rumbling upward from his chest, and she imagined he would enjoy their joining as much as she. He nuzzled her neck, the prickly growth of new whiskers abrading her jaw, the texture not unlike Shadow’s tongue on her fingertips, though her body’s reaction proved incredibly different.

  It consumed.

  He consumed.

  And she grew wet and anxious between her thighs, an unfamiliar but welcome response. If sex without a bond of love could be this wondrous, this powerful and completing, her heart soared with the future’s potential. If only she could convince Jeremy to love her in return.

  He settled his hand against her breast, her nipple taut and aching, the drag of his palm against the tip sweet agony. She arched into his touch, wanting more pleasure/pain. He growled something incoherent against her shoulder, licking, tasting a path downward. He shifted, and the mattress did as well, the vase of flowers nearly upsetting. He paused, aware of the teetering bouquet and, without looking, reached across to set it to rights. He withdrew a bloom and laid the rose upon the pillow, the fragrant scent beside her cheek. Then he returned his attention to her body.

  She wasn’t prepared for an assault when his mouth covered her nipple, hot and persistent. His tongue lathed across the tender peak, and she writhed beneath him, anchored to the mattress by the weight of his thighs. His hands at her ribs slid lower to rest on her hips, as all the while she surrendered to his attention. With her eyes closed, everything seemed more intense, more alive. The fragrance of the flower beside her, the damp insistence of her sex, the rough burn of his whiskers and the decadent heat of his wicked tongue.

  She lost herself to it, offering herself for his worship.

  The first stroke of the rose across her skin left a trail of gooseflesh in its wake. Again, she was caught by surprise. Opening her eyes, she watched as he drew a line with the lush-petaled bloom from her collarbone, down between her breasts and below to her navel.

  His irises reflected the candlelight, aglitter with mischief and intention. “Relax, darling.”

  Her body did the opposite, surprised by the brush of his chin against her hip. What was her husband about? She couldn’t ask. But she could look. Through lowered lids, she watched the sensual image of her husband, his glossy hair and sharp profile barely visible over her navel. She couldn’t manage the myriad emotions and pressed her eyes closed in a surrender to ecstasy.

  “So very lovely.” The vibration of his voice against her inner thigh was thrilling and terrifying, and she tensed, every muscle locked, though she swallowed any feeble objection.

  Was that a brush of flower petals against her skin or did she imagine the velvety, barely there caress? She willed herself to breathe, not to lose herself so much to sensation she couldn’t remember each indelible detail.

  She eased by degree, the pressure of his fingers as they smoothed over her skin and settled at her waist a steadying force, though she kept her eyes closed. Whatever scandalous, delectable activity he meant to initiate, she would experience it through awareness, not shock.

  He traced a fingertip across her core and she tightened her muscles, awed at the vibration that rippled through her body, its beginning and end a divine pleasure. Each repeated touch lured her farther from concern and respectability, but she ceased thinking at that point, too fascinated with her husband’s masterful attention.

  With precise intent, his fingers played across her sex, stroking and rubbing with exact determination. His touch, gentle yet commanding, seemed to know every secret place to evoke sensation. Back and forth, he slid his fingers with expert skill, and she gave herself over to his mastery, the pleasure unfathomable. Her body hummed from the inside out, lost in a delicate power with a building force she’d never known. What would happen? Was the pleasure unending?

  The first stroke of his tongue against her sex bolted her upright, her hands desperate to catch the bedding. He made an abrupt sound of gratification and murmured endearing words before he punished her again with another stroke of divine torture. She clenched her eyes, startled and at the same time drenched in sensual awareness.

  Like a penny cast into a wishing well, she floated, dipped, whirled, all the while unmindful of the inevitable landing. An intense tremor of pleasure racked through her and she rocked her hips in what could only be a natural rhythm, inexperienced as she was with the unknown intensity. Had she any control over her emotions, she’d blush darker than the rose petals crushed on the linen sheets.

  And then, swift and nimble, in less span than a heartbeat, every frisson of delight gathered into one acute pulse, so overwhelming and encompassing, she succumbed without thought, tight yet free, powerful and at the same time weak.

  She lay still until it passed, forever changed and captivated and all the while fully aware her husband had pleasured her with his fingers and tongue. He’d generously offered her precious intimacy while he remained wholly unsatisfied. He came up beside her to lie on his back and stare at the canopy in a similar pose as another moment passed. With unexpected tenderness, he found her hand, limp on the coverlet, and laced their fingers together. The room remained silent, and inside her, a rare bud of hope unfurled.

  She had little knowledge of how to offer him gratification, but his jutting sex, thick and hard against her side, seemed an obvious place to begin. Dismayed to break the tender gesture and pull her hand from his, she turned and placed her palm atop his flesh. His erection twitched against her fingers, hot and eager, and she watched his eyes fall closed, perhaps lost in feeling much the way she’d savored his attention.

  So much was unresolved between them, but they could have this. He’d offered her pleasure, despite withholding the words she truly yearned to hear. Still, this was a beginning of sorts. They’d done nothing in the traditional order since their first introduction.

  Discarding sensibility, she furthered her exploration, noting the way his body tensed and relaxed, how his strong thighs, dusted with light brown hair, flexed whenever she touched his skin. His erection awed her. He seemed most sensitive near the crown, the texture different, softer and pinker. What would he do if she placed a kiss there? He’d brought her immeasurable pleasure in the same fashion. She licked her lips with the suggestion. Could she be so bold? What would Amelia—no. What would Charlotte do?

  With a faint huff of satisfaction, she adjusted her position on the mattress, her hair trailing along to cause a flickering smile on her husband’s lips. Then she shifted her attention lower, and before any more wandering thoughts distracted, leaned in and kissed the tip of his sex.

  He jerked, yanked from his languid slumber and thrust into awareness by her daring action.

  “Charlotte,” he groused.

  Had she angered him? Done something wrong? Something shameful? Mayhap touching him there with her mouth was unseemly for a wife. Did it speak of depravity or an act expected of a courtesan, not a spouse? Still, a woman had her own prerogatives.

  “Do that again.” His husky command warmed her from the inside out. Apparently, her husband was more open-minded t
han she’d assumed.

  With a shy smile, she matched his eyes and obeyed. This time she peeked her tongue out for a teasing lick. He tasted salty and . . . male. No other word described the experience. She did it again. A little slower this time, with a little more confidence.

  “Charlotte.” Again her name rumbled through him. “Do you have it in mind to punish me?”

  His question slayed her newborn confidence. “Did I hurt you?” She reared up, all at once unsure of herself.

  “Come here.” He reached for her hand and tugged her upward until they lay nose to nose on the bed. “There is only so much torture I can bear.” The twinkle in his eyes confessed he experienced no pain at all.

  “Then what would you rather I do?”

  This question elicited a chuckle so rich, she couldn’t help but join him.

  “And to think I have you to bed for the rest of my life.”

  She inhaled sharply at his comment, all at once enthralled. His words implied a happy future together. Oh, how she loved her husband. If only his affection would grow in kind. Surely their intimate bed play was a step in the proper direction.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dearing stared into Charlotte’s cerulean-blue eyes and wondered if she would find it in her heart someday to forgive him. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe his concealed secrets, most too ugly to examine, wouldn’t worm their way out of hiding. He worked with great effort to remain detached, bury decisions and information that revealed harsh truths, while likewise maintain a modicum of sanity. Yet the more he opened his heart to emotion and the stronger the intimacy shared, likelihood of discovery crowded the issue. No sooner would he let his guard down than disaster would rush in. Or so he believed at times.

  Lord help him, he wanted her. Not just as his wife on a document signed under the sight of witnesses. He wanted her beneath him on this bed. His body joined to hers. His cock throbbed with aching want. Damn the consequences, he couldn’t pull back now.

  But what if a child was conceived due to his selfish, besotted heart? A cheeky son or darling daughter would bind Charlotte to him forever. Or not. Were she to uncover the truth and turn her back, she could remove herself and their child from the house as fair punishment. She could insist on living in the countryside where her bitterness would poison his child against him. A more punishing result he did not know.